Bursa ( Turkish pronunciation: [ˈbuɾsa] ) is a city in northwestern Turkey and the administrative center of Bursa Province . The fourth-most populous city in Turkey and second-most populous in the Marmara Region , Bursa is one of the industrial centers of the country. Most of Turkey's automotive production takes place in Bursa. As of 2019, the Metropolitan Province was home to 3,056,120 inhabitants, 2,161,990 of whom lived in the 3 city urban districts ( Osmangazi , Yıldırım and Nilüfer ) plus Gürsu and Kestel .
166-534: Bursa was the first major and second overall capital of the Ottoman State between 1335 and 1363. A more recent nickname is Yeşil Bursa (" Green Bursa ") referring to the parks and gardens located across the city, as well as to the vast, varied forests of the surrounding region. Bursa has a rather orderly urban growth and borders a fertile plain. The mausoleums of the early Ottoman sultans are located in Bursa, and
332-624: A Turkish bath by Westerners, is a type of steam bath or a place of public bathing associated with the Islamic world . It is a prominent feature in the culture of the Muslim world and was inherited from the model of the Roman thermae . Muslim bathhouses or hammams were historically found across the Middle East , North Africa , al-Andalus (Islamic Iberia , i.e. Spain and Portugal ), Central Asia ,
498-450: A metro ( Bursaray ), trams and a bus system for inner-city public transport, while taxi cabs are also available. Bursa's Yenişehir Airport is 20 mi (32 km) away from the city centre. The citizens of Bursa also prefer Istanbul's airports such as Istanbul Airport and Sabiha Gökçen International Airport for flights to foreign countries, due to Istanbul's proximity to Bursa. There are numerous daily bus and ferry services between
664-672: A calamitous end in 1683 when Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa Pasha led a huge army to attempt a second Ottoman siege of Vienna in the Great Turkish War of 1683–1699. The final assault being fatally delayed, the Ottoman forces were swept away by allied Habsburg, German, and Polish forces spearheaded by the Polish king John III Sobieski at the Battle of Vienna . The alliance of the Holy League pressed home
830-422: A cold room to progressively hotter rooms. Men are usually washed by male bath attendants and women by female attendants before they are given a massage. Some details of the process vary from region to region, such as the presence or absence of pools where visitors can immerse themselves in water. In more conservative areas women are less likely to bathe in just their underwear while in areas where hammams have become
996-494: A coup, but he did see the need for military mobilization. In 1883, a German military mission under General Baron Colmar von der Goltz arrived to train the Ottoman Army, leading to the so-called "Goltz generation" of German-trained officers, who played a notable role in the politics of the empire's last years. From 1894 to 1896, between 100,000 and 300,000 Armenians living throughout the empire were killed in what became known as
1162-811: A decline in their use – although to varying degrees depending on regional cultural practices. In many regions hammams have been abandoned, demolished or converted to serve as commercial buildings or cultural venues. Some have been converted into museums or art galleries , as with the examples of the Bayezid II Hamam in Istanbul , which now houses a hammam museum, and the Davud Pasha (or Daut Pasha) Hamam in Skopje , North Macedonia . In Turkey many historic hammams continue to operate either for locals or for tourists; in some cases this has led to neglected historic hammams such as
1328-698: A dry-hot summer subtropical climate (Csa) under the Trewartha classification. The city has hot, dry summers that last from June until September. Winters are cool and damp, also containing the most rainfall. There can be snow on the ground which will last for a week or two. Air pollution is a chronic problem in Bursa. Bursa is the largest production centre of the Turkish automotive industry . Factories of motor vehicle producers like Fiat , Renault and Karsan , as well as automotive parts producers like Bosch , Mako , Valeo , Johnson Controls , Delphi have been active in
1494-491: A fairly modern conscripted army , banking system reforms, the decriminalization of homosexuality, the replacement of religious law with secular law, and guilds with modern factories. The Ottoman Ministry of Post was established in Istanbul in 1840. American inventor Samuel Morse received an Ottoman patent for the telegraph in 1847, issued by Sultan Abdülmecid , who personally tested the invention. The reformist period peaked with
1660-545: A figure that vastly exceeded the number of Muslim children in school at the time, who were further hindered by the amount of time spent learning Arabic and Islamic theology. Author Norman Stone suggests that the Arabic alphabet, in which Turkish was written until 1928 , was ill-suited to reflect the sounds of Turkish (which is a Turkic as opposed to Semitic language), which imposed further difficulty on Turkish children. In turn, Christians' higher educational levels allowed them to play
1826-416: A hammam after childbirth or illness. However, even al-Ghazali thought it admissible for men to prohibit their wives or sisters from using the hammam. For al-Ghazali the main point of contention surrounding hammams was nakedness, and he warned that overt nakedness was to be avoided ("… he should shield it from the sight of others and second, guard against the touch of others.") His writing focused especially on
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#17330847466791992-503: A larger role in the economy, with the rise in prominence of groups such as the Sursock family indicative of this. In 1911, of the 654 wholesale companies in Istanbul, 528 were owned by ethnic Greeks. In many cases, Christians and Jews gained protection from European consuls and citizenship, meaning they were protected from Ottoman law and not subject to the same economic regulations as their Muslim counterparts. The Crimean War (1853–1856)
2158-522: A longer list, see the places of interest in Bursa . Bursa, initially home to a small Romaniote Jewish community, underwent a demographic shift with the arrival of Sephardic Jews who were expelled from the Iberian Peninsula in the late 15th century. The Sephardic majority quickly absorbed the Romaniotes, leading to a cultural and numerical dominance. Judaeo-Spanish became the daily language, and
2324-664: A major center for its trade, contributing to its continued prosperity throughout the seventeenth and much of the eighteenth century. Under Ivan IV (1533–1584), the Tsardom of Russia expanded into the Volga and Caspian regions at the expense of the Tatar khanates. In 1571, the Crimean khan Devlet I Giray , commanded by the Ottomans, burned Moscow . The next year, the invasion was repeated but repelled at
2490-514: A sense of Turkish nationalism. In this period, the Ottoman Empire spent only small amounts of public funds on education; for example, in 1860–1861 only 0.2% of the total budget was invested in education. As the Ottoman state attempted to modernize its infrastructure and army in response to outside threats, it opened itself up to a different kind of threat: that of creditors. As the historian Eugene Rogan has written, "the single greatest threat to
2656-538: A significant portion of the Mediterranean Basin , the Ottoman Empire was at the centre of interactions between the Middle East and Europe for six centuries. While the Ottoman Empire was once thought to have entered a period of decline after the death of Suleiman the Magnificent, modern academic consensus posits that the empire continued to maintain a flexible and strong economy, society and military into much of
2822-515: A single direction. Bursa has two public universities and one private university. Uludağ University , founded in 1975, is the oldest institution of higher education in the city. Founded first as the Bursa University then renamed Uludağ University in 1982, the university has a student body of 47,000, one of the largest in Turkey. Bursa Technical University is the second public university of Bursa and
2988-579: A source of revenue for the upkeep of other institutions such as mosques. In the 11th century the Seljuk Empire conquered much of Anatolia from the Byzantine Empire , eventually leading to the complete conquest of the remnants of the old empire in the 15th century. During those centuries of war, peace, alliance, trade and competition, these intermixing cultures (Eastern Roman, Islamic Persian and Turkic ) had tremendous influence on each other. Later
3154-558: A strong Eastern Roman bath culture, with the Baths of Zeuxippus constituting one early example. Ottoman architects expanded on the experience of Byzantine architects to create particularly well-balanced designs with greater symmetry and regularity in the arrangement of space than could be seen in hammams in other parts of the Muslim world. Some of the city's oldest monumental hammams are the Tahtakale Hamam (probably built right after 1454),
3320-454: A victory over the Ottoman fleet at the Battle of Lepanto (1571), off southwestern Greece; Catholic forces killed over 30,000 Turks and destroyed 200 of their ships. It was a startling, if mostly symbolic, blow to the image of Ottoman invincibility, an image which the victory of the Knights of Malta over the Ottoman invaders in the 1565 siege of Malta had recently set about eroding. The battle
3486-404: A weekday is 62 min. 12% of public transit riders ride for more than 2 hours every day. The average amount of time people wait at a stop or station for public transit is 18 min, while 31% of riders wait for over 20 minutes on average every day. The average distance people usually ride in a single trip on public transit is 8.1 km (5.0 mi), while 17% travel for over 12 km (7.5 mi) in
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#17330847466793652-450: A woman or a man can make someone included or excluded. Therefore, they represent a departure from the public sphere in which one is physically exposed amongst other women or men. This declaration of sexuality merely by being nude makes hammams a site of gendered expression. One exception to this gender segregation is the presence of young boys who often accompany their mothers until they reach the age of five or six when they switch to attending
3818-639: Is a requirement of Islam, though immersion in a pool used to be customary in the hammams of some regions such as Iran . While hammams everywhere generally operate in fairly similar ways, there are some regional differences both in usage and architecture. The word "hammam" ( حَمَّام ) is a noun meaning "bath", "bathroom", "bathhouse", "swimming pool", etc. derived from the Arabic triconsonantal root H-M-M ( ح م م ) which yields meanings related to heat or heating. From Arabic حمّام , it passed on to Persian ( حمام ) and Turkish ( hamam ). In English,
3984-487: Is also required before or after sexual intercourse. Knowing that, May Telmissany , a professor at the University of Ottawa , argues that the image of a hyper-sexualised woman leaving the hammam is an Orientalist way of looking at things that sees leaving or attending the hammam as an indicator of sexual behaviour. Most hammams expect their clients to undress down to a modesty garment or loincloth , before proceeding from
4150-488: Is designed to feel peaceful and contemplative. The subdivisions of space formed by multiple domes and pillars create a sense of privacy and even intimacy. This atmosphere contrasts with the later Ottoman mosques (see for example the works of Suleiman the Magnificent 's chief architect, Mimar Sinan .) The mosques that were built after the conquest of Constantinople ( Istanbul ) by the Ottoman Turks in 1453, and influenced by
4316-630: Is one of the Five Pillars of Islam and it is customary to perform ablutions before praying. The two Islamic forms of ablution are ghusl , a full-body cleansing, and wudu , a cleansing of the face, hands, and feet. In the absence of water, cleansing with pure soil or sand is also permissible. Mosques always provide a place to wash, but hammams are often located nearby for deeper cleansing. Many are actually part of mosque complexes. Hammams, particularly in Morocco, evolved from their Roman origins to meet
4482-584: Is the work of Ottomanist Halil İnalcık . In July 1915, thousands of Greek Orthodox Christians sought refuge in Bursa after having been forced out of their coastal villages by orders of the Young Turk government . This worsened the situation of the native Greeks of Bursa, who had managed to survive through the attacks and boycotts of 1914. A short time later, deportation orders came for Bursa's Armenians. Protestant Armenians were initially spared from deportation, but villagers that tried to resist were massacred. Most of
4648-600: The Tanzimat ; over the course of the 19th century, the Ottoman state became vastly more powerful and organized internally, despite suffering further territorial losses, especially in the Balkans, where a number of new states emerged. Beginning in the late 19th century, various Ottoman intellectuals sought to further liberalize society and politics along European lines, culminating in the Young Turk Revolution of 1908 led by
4814-618: The Anatolian Beyliks . One of these, in the region of Bithynia on the frontier of the Byzantine Empire, was led by the Turkish tribal leader Osman I ( d. 1323/4), a figure of obscure origins from whom the name Ottoman is derived. Osman's early followers consisted of Turkish tribal groups and Byzantine renegades, with many but not all converts to Islam. Osman extended control of his principality by conquering Byzantine towns along
4980-597: The Balkans during the loss of the Ottoman territories in Europe between the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The most recent arrival of Balkan Turks took place between the 1940s and 1990s, when the People's Republic of Bulgaria expelled approximately 150,000 Bulgarian Turks to Turkey. About one-third of these 150,000 Bulgarian Turkish refugees eventually settled in Bursa (especially in
5146-458: The Battle of Molodi . The Ottoman Empire continued to invade Eastern Europe in a series of slave raids , and remained a significant power in Eastern Europe until the end of the 17th century. The Ottomans decided to conquer Venetian Cyprus and on 22 July 1570, Nicosia was besieged; 50,000 Christians died, and 180,000 were enslaved. On 15 September 1570, the Ottoman cavalry appeared before
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5312-702: The Bosporus Strait made it difficult to conquer. In 1402, the Byzantines were temporarily relieved when the Turco-Mongol leader Timur , founder of the Timurid Empire , invaded Ottoman Anatolia from the east. In the Battle of Ankara in 1402, Timur defeated Ottoman forces and took Sultan Bayezid I as prisoner, throwing the empire into disorder. The ensuing civil war lasted from 1402 to 1413 as Bayezid's sons fought over succession. It ended when Mehmed I emerged as
5478-592: The Bulgarian Tsardom of Vidin in 1396, regarded as the last large-scale crusade of the Middle Ages , failed to stop the advance of the victorious Ottomans. As the Turks expanded into the Balkans, the conquest of Constantinople became a crucial objective. The Ottomans had already wrested control of nearly all former Byzantine lands surrounding the city, but the strong defense of Constantinople's strategic position on
5644-583: The Cape of Good Hope in 1488 initiated a series of Ottoman-Portuguese naval wars in the Indian Ocean throughout the 16th century. Despite the growing European presence in the Indian Ocean, Ottoman trade with the east continued to flourish. Cairo, in particular, benefitted from the rise of Yemeni coffee as a popular consumer commodity. As coffeehouses appeared in cities and towns across the empire, Cairo developed into
5810-636: The Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), which established the Second Constitutional Era and introduced competitive multi-party elections under a constitutional monarchy. However, following the disastrous Balkan Wars , the CUP became increasingly radicalized and nationalistic, leading a coup d'état in 1913 that established a one-party regime. The CUP allied with the German Empire hoping to escape from
5976-485: The Constitution of the Ottoman Empire and brought in multi-party politics with a two-stage electoral system ( electoral law ) under the Ottoman parliament . The constitution offered hope by freeing the empire's citizens to modernise the state's institutions, rejuvenate its strength, and enable it to hold its own against outside powers. Its guarantee of liberties promised to dissolve inter-communal tensions and transform
6142-808: The Great Northern War of 1700–1721). Charles XII persuaded the Ottoman Sultan Ahmed III to declare war on Russia, which resulted in an Ottoman victory in the Pruth River Campaign of 1710–1711, in Moldavia. After the Austro-Turkish War , the Treaty of Passarowitz confirmed the loss of the Banat, Serbia, and "Little Walachia" (Oltenia) to Austria. The Treaty also revealed that the Ottoman Empire
6308-534: The Greek revolt (1821–1829) that ultimately ended with the formal independence of Greece in 1830. It was a costly enterprise for Muhammad Ali, who had lost his fleet at the Battle of Navarino in 1827. Thus began the first Egyptian–Ottoman War (1831–1833) , during which the French-trained army of Muhammad Ali, under the command of his son Ibrahim Pasha , defeated the Ottoman Army as it marched into Anatolia , reaching
6474-769: The Greeks declared war on the Sultan. A rebellion that originated in Moldavia as a diversion was followed by the main revolution in the Peloponnese , which, along with the northern part of the Gulf of Corinth , became the first parts of the Ottoman Empire to achieve independence (in 1829). In 1830, the French invaded the Deylik of Algiers . The campaign that took 21 days, resulted in over 5,000 Algerian military casualties, and about 2,600 French ones. Before
6640-497: The Hamidian massacres . In 1897 the population was 19 million, of whom 14 million (74%) were Muslim. An additional 20 million lived in provinces that remained under the sultan's nominal suzerainty but were entirely outside his actual power. One by one the Porte lost nominal authority. They included Egypt, Tunisia, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Lebanon. As
6806-646: The Iberian Union . The Ottomans were holders of the Caliph title, meaning they were the leaders of Muslims worldwide. The Iberians were leaders of the Christian crusaders, and so the two fought in a worldwide conflict. There were zones of operations in the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean , where Iberians circumnavigated Africa to reach India and, on their way, wage war upon the Ottomans and their local Muslim allies. Likewise,
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6972-527: The Indian subcontinent , and in Southeastern Europe under Ottoman rule . In Islamic cultures the significance of the hammam was both religious and civic: it provided for the needs of ritual ablutions but also provided for general hygiene in an era before private plumbing and served other social functions such as offering a gendered meeting place for men and for women. Archeological remains attest to
7138-690: The Köprülü era (1656–1703), effective control of the Empire was exercised by a sequence of grand viziers from the Köprülü family. The Köprülü Vizierate saw renewed military success with authority restored in Transylvania, the conquest of Crete completed in 1669, and expansion into Polish southern Ukraine , with the strongholds of Khotyn , and Kamianets-Podilskyi and the territory of Podolia ceding to Ottoman control in 1676. This period of renewed assertiveness came to
7304-530: The Kılıç Ali Pasa Hamamı and the Hürrem Sultan Hamamı being renovated and returned to their original function, while others were abandoned or repurposed. Some of the more contemporary hammams "are quite modern and rival luxury spa experiences around the world. " In Morocco, many hammams continue to serve locals in historic cities such as Fes and Marrakesh , where they are especially useful to
7470-651: The Mahmut Pasha Hamam (built in 1466), and the Bayezid II Hamam (built some time between 1500 and 1507). The monumental hammams designed by the 16th-century Ottoman architect Mimar Sinan (1489–1588), such as the Çemberlitaş Hamamı , the Süleymaniye Hamam (in the complex of the Süleymaniye Mosque ), and the Haseki Hürrem Sultan Hamam , are major examples of hammams that were built later in
7636-409: The Mediterranean world. They remained important in the cities of the early Byzantine Empire up to around the mid-6th century, after which the construction of new bathhouses declined and existing ones were gradually abandoned. Following the expansion of Arab Muslim rule over much of the Middle East and North Africa in the 7th and 8th centuries, the emerging Islamic societies were quick to adapt
7802-451: The Oriental Crisis of 1840 . Muhammad Ali had close relations with France , and the prospect of him becoming the Sultan of Egypt was widely viewed as putting the entire Levant into the French sphere of influence. As the Sublime Porte had proved itself incapable of defeating Muhammad Ali, the British Empire and Austrian Empire provided military assistance, and the second Egyptian–Ottoman War (1839–1841) ended with Ottoman victory and
7968-795: The Ottomans became prolific patrons of hammams. Since they were social centres as well as baths, they were built in almost every city across their European, Asian, and African territories. The Ottomans were thus responsible for introducing hammams to much of eastern and central Europe, where many still exist today in various states of restoration or disrepair. Such Turkish baths are found as far as Bosnia and Herzegovina , Greece , and Hungary . Many early Ottoman hammams survive in Bursa and Edirne , as well as in Eastern Europe and Anatolia , but hammams became even more numerous and architecturally ambitious in Constantinople (Istanbul) , thanks to its royal patronage, its large population and its access to plentiful water. The city's Greek inhabitants had retained
8134-425: The Roman Republic and renamed it Prusa ( Ancient Greek : Προῦσα ; sometimes rendered as Prussa ). After 128 years of Bithynian rule, Nicomedes IV , the last King of Bithynia , bequeathed the entire kingdom to the Roman Empire in 74 BC. An early Roman Treasure was found near Bursa in the early 20th century. Composed of a woman's silver toilet articles, it is now in the British Museum . Under Byzantine rule,
8300-472: The Sakarya River . A Byzantine defeat at the Battle of Bapheus in 1302 contributed to Osman's rise. It is not well understood how the early Ottomans came to dominate their neighbors, due to the lack of sources surviving. The Ghaza thesis popular during the 20th century credited their success to rallying religious warriors to fight for them in the name of Islam , but it is no longer generally accepted. No other hypothesis has attracted broad acceptance. In
8466-477: The Spanish garrison of Castelnuovo on the Adriatic coast ; the successful siege cost the Ottomans 8,000 casualties, but Venice agreed to terms in 1540, surrendering most of its empire in the Aegean and the Morea . France and the Ottoman Empire, united by mutual opposition to Habsburg rule, became allies. The French conquests of Nice (1543) and Corsica (1553) occurred as a joint venture between French king Francis I and Suleiman, and were commanded by
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#17330847466798632-432: The Süper Lig (Super League), the top-tier of Turkish football, until finishing 16th at the end of the 2018–19 Süper Lig season and being relegated to the TFF First League . A few years earlier, Bursaspor had managed to become the Turkish champions at the end of the 2009–10 Süper Lig season, thereby becoming the second Anatolian club to ever win the Süper Lig championship title after Trabzonspor. Henceforth, Bursaspor
8798-421: The Timsah Arena (meaning "Crocodile Arena", crocodile being the mascot of the team), which has a seating capacity of 45,000. The city has three professional basketball teams in the Turkish Basketball League , Bursaspor and Tofaş S.K. , which is among the most successful teams. The club plays its games at the Tofaş Nilüfer Sports Hall . Also, Final Spor plays in the second division. The current mayor of
8964-454: The Treaty of Nasuh Pasha , which ceded the entire Caucasus, except westernmost Georgia, back into the possession of Safavid Iran . The treaty ending the Cretan War cost Venice much of Dalmatia , its Aegean island possessions, and Crete . (Losses from the war totalled 30,985 Venetian soldiers and 118,754 Turkish soldiers.) During his brief majority reign, Murad IV (1623–1640) reasserted central authority and recaptured Iraq (1639) from
9130-403: The Ulu Cami (Grand Mosque) between 1396 and 1400. After Bayezid was defeated in the Battle of Ankara by the forces of Timur in 1402, the latter's grandson, Muhammad Sultan Mirza , had the city pillaged and burned. Despite this, Bursa remained as the most important administrative and commercial centre in the empire until Mehmed II conquered Constantinople in 1453. The population of Bursa
9296-433: The aftermath of World War I , the victorious Allied Powers occupied and partitioned the Ottoman Empire, which lost its southern territories to the United Kingdom and France . The successful Turkish War of Independence , led by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk against the occupying Allies, led to the emergence of the Republic of Turkey in the Anatolian heartland and the abolition of the Ottoman monarchy in 1922, formally ending
9462-525: The conquest of Constantinople in 1453 by Mehmed II , which marked the Ottomans' emergence as a major regional power. Under Suleiman the Magnificent (1520–1566), the empire reached the peak of its power, prosperity, and political development. By the start of the 17th century, the Ottomans presided over 32 provinces and numerous vassal states , which over time were either absorbed into the Empire or granted various degrees of autonomy. With its capital at Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul ) and control over
9628-531: The 10th century many places started to provide separate hours (or separate facilities) for men and women. The hammam then took on an important role in women's social life as one of the few public spaces where they could gather and socialise apart from men. Some hammams were privately owned or formed parts of palaces and mansions, but in many cases they were civic or charitable institutions which formed part of larger religious/civic complexes. Such complexes were governed by waqf agreements, and hammams often acted as
9794-402: The 14th century. The earliest known human settlement near Bursa's current location was at Ilıpınar Höyüğü around 5200 BC. It was followed by the ancient Greek city of Cius , which Philip V of Macedon granted to Prusias I , the King of Bithynia , in 202 BC. King Prusias rebuilt the city with the advice of general Hannibal of Carthage , who took refuge with Prusias after losing the war with
9960-431: The 18th century. However, during a long period of peace from 1740 to 1768, the Ottoman military system fell behind those of its chief European rivals, the Habsburg and Russian empires. The Ottomans consequently suffered severe military defeats in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, culminating in the loss of both territory and global prestige . This prompted a comprehensive process of reform and modernization known as
10126-425: The 20th century. A massage in a hammam is likely to involve not just vigorous muscle kneading, but also joint cracking - "not so much a tender working of the flesh as a pummelling, a cracking of joints, a twisting of limbs". Hammams aiming for a tourist clientele are likely to also offer an array of different types of massage similar to what might be offered in a spa. Arab hammams are gendered spaces where being
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#173308474667910292-486: The Balkan Peninsula during the Congress of Berlin , and in return, Britain assumed the administration of Cyprus in 1878. Britain later sent troops to Egypt in 1882 to put down the Urabi Revolt (Sultan Abdul Hamid II was too paranoid to mobilize his own army, fearing this would result in a coup d'état), effectively gaining control in both territories. Abdul Hamid II was so fearful of a coup that he did not allow his army to conduct war games, lest this serve as cover for
10458-445: The Balkans . Osman's son, Orhan , captured the northwestern Anatolian city of Bursa in 1326, making it the new capital and supplanting Byzantine control in the region. The important port of Thessaloniki was captured from the Venetians in 1387 and sacked. The Ottoman victory in Kosovo in 1389 effectively marked the end of Serbian power in the region, paving the way for Ottoman expansion into Europe. The Battle of Nicopolis for
10624-414: The Berut synagogue. Bursa also had a Jewish cemetery until recently. Though never a major center, Bursa's Jewish population fluctuated. Dubious data suggests 683 families in 1571/72, dropping to 141 by 1696/97. By 1883, there were 2,179 Jews, with an influx of 400 from Akkerman in 1887. Pre- World War I , the population reached 3,500, but emigration reduced it to 140 by the early 21st century. Engaged in
10790-495: The Bursa Metropolitan Municipality Mustafa Bozbey is elected from the main opposition party (CHP) in March 2024. Alinur Aktaş from the Justice and Development Party (AKP) was in office between 2019 and 2024, the AKP coalition won 49.6% of the vote against the CHP coalition which got 47% of the vote. Ulu Cami is the largest mosque in Bursa and a landmark of early Ottoman architecture , which incorporated many elements from Seljuk architecture. Ordered by Sultan Bayezid I ,
10956-446: The Conqueror , reorganized both state and military, and on 29 May 1453 conquered Constantinople , ending the Byzantine Empire. Mehmed allowed the Eastern Orthodox Church to maintain its autonomy and land in exchange for accepting Ottoman authority. Due to tension between the states of western Europe and the later Byzantine Empire, most of the Orthodox population accepted Ottoman rule, as preferable to Venetian rule. Albanian resistance
11122-444: The Constitution, called the Kanûn-u Esâsî . The empire's First Constitutional era was short-lived. The parliament survived for only two years before the sultan suspended it. The empire's Christian population, owing to their higher educational levels, started to pull ahead of the Muslim majority, leading to much resentment. In 1861, there were 571 primary and 94 secondary schools for Ottoman Christians, with 140,000 pupils in total,
11288-482: The French invasion the total population of Algeria was most likely between 3,000,000 and 5,000,000. By 1873, the population of Algeria (excluding several hundred thousand newly arrived French settlers) had decreased to 2,172,000. In 1831, Muhammad Ali of Egypt revolted against Sultan Mahmud II due to the latter's refusal to grant him the governorships of Greater Syria and Crete , which the Sultan had promised him in exchange for sending military assistance to put down
11454-444: The Hürriyet neighbourhood). With the construction of new industrial zones in the period between 1980 and 2000, many people from the eastern provinces of Turkey came and settled in Bursa. The area covered by Bursa corresponds to 1.41% of Turkey 's land area, which makes the city 27th in the country in terms of land area. Bursa stands on the northwestern slopes of Mount Uludağ (known as the Mysian Olympus in classical antiquity), on
11620-405: The Iberians passed through newly-Christianized Latin America and had sent expeditions that traversed the Pacific to Christianize the formerly Muslim Philippines and use it as a base to attack the Muslims in the Far East . In this case, the Ottomans sent armies to aid its easternmost vassal and territory, the Sultanate of Aceh in Southeast Asia. During the 1600s, the world conflict between
11786-664: The Islamic clergy successfully objected under the grounds of theodicy . In 1754 the artillery school was reopened on a semi-secret basis. In 1726, Ibrahim Muteferrika convinced the Grand Vizier Nevşehirli Damat Ibrahim Pasha , the Grand Mufti , and the clergy on the efficiency of the printing press, and Muteferrika was later granted by Sultan Ahmed III permission to publish non-religious books (despite opposition from some calligraphers and religious leaders). Muteferrika's press published its first book in 1729 and, by 1743, issued 17 works in 23 volumes, each having between 500 and 1,000 copies. In North Africa, Spain conquered Oran from
11952-523: The Janissary revolted . Selim's efforts cost him his throne and his life, but were resolved in spectacular and bloody fashion by his successor, the dynamic Mahmud II , who eliminated the Janissary corps in 1826. The Serbian revolution (1804–1815) marked the beginning of an era of national awakening in the Balkans during the Eastern Question . In 1811, the fundamentalist Wahhabis of Arabia, led by
12118-515: The Magnificent (1520–1566) captured Belgrade in 1521, conquered the southern and central parts of the Kingdom of Hungary as part of the Ottoman–Hungarian Wars , and, after his historic victory in the Battle of Mohács in 1526, he established Ottoman rule in the territory of present-day Hungary and other Central European territories. He then laid siege to Vienna in 1529, but failed to take
12284-574: The Muslim world, with hammams appearing as far west as Volubilis (itself a former Roman colony) in Morocco during the Idrisid period (late 8th to early 9th centuries). Historical texts and archeological evidence also indicate the existence of hammams in Cordoba and other cities of al-Andalus in the 8th century. In Iran , which did not previously have a strong culture of public bathing, historical texts mention
12450-527: The Ottoman Caliphate and Iberian Union was a stalemate since both were at similar population , technology and economic levels. Nevertheless, the success of the Ottoman political and military establishment was compared to the Roman Empire , despite the difference in size, by the likes of contemporary Italian scholar Francesco Sansovino and French political philosopher Jean Bodin . In the second half of
12616-631: The Ottoman Empire gradually shrank, 7–9 million Muslims from its former territories in the Caucasus, Crimea , Balkans, and the Mediterranean islands migrated to Anatolia and Eastern Thrace . After the Empire lost the First Balkan War (1912–1913), it lost all its Balkan territories except East Thrace (European Turkey). This resulted in around 400,000 Muslims fleeing with the retreating Ottoman armies (with many dying from cholera brought by
12782-615: The Ottoman Empire. The word Ottoman is a historical anglicisation of the name of Osman I , the founder of the Empire and of the ruling House of Osman (also known as the Ottoman dynasty). Osman's name in turn was the Turkish form of the Arabic name ʿUthmān ( عثمان ). In Ottoman Turkish , the empire was referred to as Devlet-i ʿAlīye-yi ʿO s mānīye ( دولت عليه عثمانیه ), lit. ' Sublime Ottoman State ' , or simply Devlet-i ʿO s mānīye ( دولت عثمانيه ), lit. ' Ottoman State ' . The Turkish word for "Ottoman" ( Osmanlı ) originally referred to
12948-557: The Ottoman admirals Hayreddin Barbarossa and Dragut . France supported the Ottomans with an artillery unit during the 1543 Ottoman conquest of Esztergom in northern Hungary. After further advances by the Turks, the Habsburg ruler Ferdinand officially recognized Ottoman ascendancy in Hungary in 1547. Suleiman died of natural causes during the siege of Szigetvár in 1566. Following his death,
13114-483: The Ottoman economy, and used its position to ensure that European capital continued to penetrate the empire, often to the detriment of local Ottoman interests. The Ottoman bashi-bazouks suppressed the Bulgarian uprising of 1876, massacring up to 100,000 people in the process. The Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878) ended with a decisive victory for Russia. As a result, Ottoman holdings in Europe declined sharply: Bulgaria
13280-547: The Ottomans were said to be declining, although this has been rejected by many scholars. By the end of Suleiman's reign, the Empire spanned approximately 877,888 sq mi (2,273,720 km ), extending over three continents. The Empire became a dominant naval force, controlling much of the Mediterranean Sea . The Empire was now a major part of European politics. The Ottomans became involved in multi-continental religious wars when Spain and Portugal were united under
13446-676: The Russian Empire (2 November 1914) and its allies France (5 November 1914) and the British Empire (5 November 1914) declared war on the Ottoman Empire. Also on 5 November 1914, the British government changed the status of the Khedivate of Egypt and Cyprus , which were de jure Ottoman territories prior to the war, to British protectorates . Hammam A hammam ( Arabic : حمّام , romanized : ḥammām ), also often called
13612-644: The Russian intervention, Sultan Mahmud II could have faced the risk of being overthrown and Muhammad Ali could have even become the new Sultan. These events marked the beginning of a recurring pattern where the Sublime Porte needed the help of foreign powers to protect itself. In 1839, the Sublime Porte attempted to take back what it lost to the de facto autonomous, but de jure still Ottoman Eyalet of Egypt , but its forces were initially defeated, which led to
13778-546: The Russians. After this treaty the Ottoman Empire was able to enjoy a generation of peace in Europe, as Austria and Russia were forced to deal with the rise of Prussia . Educational and technological reforms came about, including the establishment of higher education institutions such as the Istanbul Technical University . In 1734 an artillery school was established to impart Western-style artillery methods, but
13944-617: The Safavids. The resulting Treaty of Zuhab of that same year decisively divided the Caucasus and adjacent regions between the two neighbouring empires as it had already been defined in the 1555 Peace of Amasya. The Sultanate of Women (1533–1656) was a period in which the mothers of young sultans exercised power on behalf of their sons. The most prominent women of this period were Kösem Sultan and her daughter-in-law Turhan Hatice , whose political rivalry culminated in Kösem's murder in 1651. During
14110-508: The Turks, but was again defeated at the Second Battle of Kosovo in 1448. According to modern historiography, there is a direct connection between the rapid Ottoman military advance and the consequences of the Black Death from the mid-fourteenth century onwards. Byzantine territories, where the initial Ottoman conquests were carried out, were exhausted demographically and militarily due to
14276-524: The advantage of the defeat at Vienna, culminating in the Treaty of Karlowitz (26 January 1699), which ended the Great Turkish War. The Ottomans surrendered control of significant territories, many permanently. Mustafa II (1695–1703) led the counterattack of 1695–1696 against the Habsburgs in Hungary, but was undone at the disastrous defeat at Zenta (in modern Serbia), 11 September 1697. Aside from
14442-564: The al-Saud family, revolted against the Ottomans. Unable to defeat the Wahhabi rebels, the Sublime Porte had Muhammad Ali Pasha of Kavala , the vali (governor) of the Eyalet of Egypt , tasked with retaking Arabia, which ended with the destruction of the Emirate of Diriyah in 1818. The suzerainty of Serbia as a hereditary monarchy under its own dynasty was acknowledged de jure in 1830. In 1821,
14608-413: The appropriate forms of conduct for many aspects of Muslim life and death. One of the volumes, entitled The Mysteries of Purity , details the proper technique for performing ablutions before prayer and the major ablution ( ghusil ) after anything which renders it necessary, such as the emission of semen. For al-Ghazali, the hammam is a primarily male institution, and he cautions that women should only enter
14774-485: The autonomous Deylik of Algiers . The Bey of Oran received an army from Algiers, but it failed to recapture Oran ; the siege caused the deaths of 1,500 Spaniards, and even more Algerians. The Spanish also massacred many Muslim soldiers. In 1792, Spain abandoned Oran, selling it to the Deylik of Algiers. In 1768 Russian-backed Ukrainian Haidamakas , pursuing Polish confederates, entered Balta , an Ottoman-controlled town on
14940-548: The banks of the Nilüfer River , in the southern Marmara Region . It is the capital city of Bursa Province , which borders the Sea of Marmara and Yalova to the north; Kocaeli and Sakarya to the northeast; Bilecik to the east; and Kütahya and Balıkesir to the south. Bursa has a Mediterranean climate ( Köppen climate classification : Csa ) under the Köppen classification, and
15106-405: The bathhouse to their own needs. Its importance to Muslim society lay in the religious requirement to perform ablutions ( wudu and ghusl ) before praying and because of the general Islamic emphasis on physical and spiritual purity , although the scholar Mohammed Hocine Benkheira has argued that hammams were not in fact necessary for religious purposes in early Islam and that this relationship
15272-579: The border of Bessarabia in Ukraine, massacred its citizens, and burned the town to the ground. This action provoked the Ottoman Empire into the Russo-Turkish War of 1768–1774 . The Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca of 1774 ended the war and provided freedom of worship for the Christian citizens of the Ottoman-controlled provinces of Wallachia and Moldavia. By the late 18th century, after a number of defeats in
15438-585: The building of hospitals, caravanserais and madrasas throughout the 14th century, with the first official Ottoman mint established in the city. After conquering Edirne (Adrianople) in East Thrace , the Ottomans turned it into the new capital city in 1363, but Bursa retained its spiritual and commercial importance in the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman sultan Bayezid I built the Bayezid Külliyesi (Bayezid I theological complex) in Bursa between 1390 and 1395 and
15604-449: The center of Bursa however they were stopped by the allied commanders and were only able to burn the train station together with Turkish civilians in it. The Cretan artilleryman Vasilios Moustakis describes the event with the following words: "The Infantry had come through and set fire to the station. We saw an English general on horseback, who ordered the fire to be put out because if Bursa were burned, it would be harming Greece". Following
15770-637: The century after Osman I, Ottoman rule had begun to extend over Anatolia and the Balkans . The earliest conflicts began during the Byzantine–Ottoman wars , waged in Anatolia in the late 13th century before entering Europe in the mid-14th century, followed by the Bulgarian–Ottoman wars and the Serbian–Ottoman wars in the mid-14th century. Much of this period was characterised by Ottoman expansion into
15936-439: The city for decades. The textile and food industries are equally strong, with Coca-Cola , Pepsi Cola and other beverage brands, as well as fresh and canned food industries being present in the city's organized industrial zones. Apart from its large automotive industry, Bursa also produces a substantial amount of dairy products (by Sütaş ), processed food (by Tat ), and beverages (by Uludağ ). Traditionally, Bursa
16102-448: The city of Kütahya within 320 km (200 mi) of the capital, Constantinople. In desperation, Sultan Mahmud II appealed to the empire's traditional arch-rival Russia for help, asking Emperor Nicholas I to send an expeditionary force to assist him. In return for signing the Treaty of Hünkâr İskelesi , the Russians sent the expeditionary force which deterred Ibrahim Pasha from marching any further towards Constantinople. Under
16268-515: The city's main landmarks include numerous edifices built throughout the Ottoman period. Bursa also has thermal baths , old Ottoman mansions, palaces, and several museums. Mount Uludağ , known in classical antiquity as the Mysian Olympus or alternatively Bithynian Olympus , towers over the city, and has a well-known ski resort . The shadow play characters Karagöz and Hacivat are based on historic personalities who lived and died in Bursa in
16434-555: The city. In 1532, he made another attack on Vienna, but was repulsed in the siege of Güns . Transylvania , Wallachia and, intermittently, Moldavia , became tributary principalities of the Empire. In the east, the Ottoman Turks took Baghdad from the Persians in 1535, gaining control of Mesopotamia and naval access to the Persian Gulf . In 1555, the Caucasus became partitioned for
16600-660: The civil strife, Austria-Hungary officially annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1908. The last of the Ottoman censuses was performed in 1914 . Despite military reforms which reconstituted the Ottoman Modern Army , the Empire lost its North African territories and the Dodecanese in the Italo-Turkish War (1911) and almost all of its European territories in the Balkan Wars (1912–1913). The Empire faced continuous unrest in
16766-512: The community paid its poll tax through the representative, the kahya . Throughout the Ottoman period, most Jews resided in Kuruçeşme, Bursa's Jewish quarter, home to three synagogues . Etz Chaim (Eṣ Ḥayyim), the oldest, predated Ottoman conquest , while the Gerush and Mayor synagogues were established by Sephardic newcomers. Despite the 1851 fire destroying Etz Chaim, the other two remain, along with
16932-589: The deportees would perish in what became known as the Armenian Genocide . Subsequently, large numbers of Kurds and Circassians, as well as Syrians from the south, were settled in the homes and towns of the deported Christians, radically altering the demographic composition of the town and region. According to Mustafa Zahit Oner, in the last days of the Greco-Turkish War in 1922, the Greek Army attempted to burn
17098-516: The design of the 6th century Byzantine basilica of Hagia Sophia , had increasingly elevated and large central domes, which create a vertical emphasis that is intended to be more overwhelming; to convey the divine power of Allah, the majesty of the Ottoman Sultan, and the governmental authority of the Ottoman State. A brief list of the places of interest in and around Bursa is presented below. For
17264-509: The diplomatic isolation that had contributed to its recent territorial losses; it thus joined World War I on the side of the Central Powers . While the empire was able to largely hold its own during the conflict, it struggled with internal dissent, especially the Arab Revolt . During this period, the Ottoman government engaged in genocide against Armenians , Assyrians , and Greeks . In
17430-469: The early 16th and early 18th centuries. The empire emerged from a beylik , or principality , founded in northwestern Anatolia in c. 1299 by the Turkoman tribal leader Osman I . His successors conquered much of Anatolia and expanded into the Balkans by the mid-14th century, transforming their petty kingdom into a transcontinental empire. The Ottomans ended the Byzantine Empire with
17596-630: The eastern and southern frontiers by defeating Shah Ismail of Safavid Iran , in the Battle of Chaldiran . Selim I established Ottoman rule in Egypt by defeating and annexing the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt and created a naval presence on the Red Sea . After this Ottoman expansion, competition began between the Portuguese Empire and the Ottomans to become the dominant power in the region. Suleiman
17762-514: The empire into a more harmonious place. Instead, this period became the story of the twilight struggle of the Empire. Members of Young Turks movement who had once gone underground now established their parties. Among them " Committee of Union and Progress ", and " Freedom and Accord Party " were major parties. On the other end of the spectrum were ethnic parties, which included Poale Zion , Al-Fatat , and Armenian national movement organised under Armenian Revolutionary Federation . Profiting from
17928-531: The end of the Caucasian Wars , 90% of the Circassians were ethnically cleansed and exiled from their homelands in the Caucasus, fleeing to the Ottoman Empire, resulting in the settlement of 500,000 to 700,000 Circassians in the Ottoman Empire. Crimean Tatar refugees in the late 19th century played an especially notable role in seeking to modernise Ottoman education and in first promoting both Pan-Turkism and
18094-466: The end of the seventeenth century, and instead the word increasingly became associated with the Greek population of the empire, a meaning that it still bears in Turkey today. In Western Europe, the names Ottoman Empire, Turkish Empire and Turkey were often used interchangeably, with Turkey being increasingly favoured both in formal and informal situations. This dichotomy was officially ended in 1920–1923, when
18260-546: The era of classical Ottoman architecture . When Sultan Mustafa III issued a decree halting the construction of new public baths in the city in 1768, it seems to have resulted in an increase in the number of private hammams among the wealthy and the elites, especially in the Bosphorus suburbs where they built luxurious summer homes. In Iran, many examples of hammams survive from the Safavid period (16th–18th centuries) onward, with
18426-489: The everyday interactions of Moroccans in the hammam. Staats argues that hammams are places where women can feel more at ease than in many other public interactions. In addition, in his work Sexuality in Islam, Abdelwahab Bouhdiba cites the hammam as a place where homosexual encounters in general can take place. He notes that some historians found evidence of hammams as spaces for sexual expression among women, which they believed
18592-413: The existence of bathhouses in the 10th century as well as the use of hot springs for therapeutic purposes; however, there has been relatively little archeological investigation to document the early presence and development of hammams in this region. Muslims retained many of the main elements of the classical bathhouses while leaving out functions which were less relevant to their practices. For example,
18758-538: The existence of bathhouses in the Islamic world as early as the Umayyad period (7th–8th centuries) and their importance has persisted up to modern times. Their architecture evolved from the layout of Roman and Greek bathhouses and featured a regular sequence of rooms: an undressing room , a cold room , a warm room , and a hot room . Heat was produced by furnaces which provided hot water and steam , while smoke and hot air
18924-480: The first time between the Safavids and the Ottomans, a status quo that remained until the end of the Russo-Turkish War (1768–1774) . By this partitioning as signed in the Peace of Amasya , Western Armenia , western Kurdistan , and Western Georgia fell into Ottoman hands, while southern Dagestan , Eastern Armenia , Eastern Georgia , and Azerbaijan remained Persian. In 1539, a 60,000-strong Ottoman army besieged
19090-497: The foundation of the Republic of Turkey in 1923, Bursa became one of the industrial centres of the country. The economic development of the city was followed by population growth, and Bursa became the 4th most populous city in Turkey . The city has traditionally been a pole of attraction, and was a major centre for refugees from various ethnic backgrounds who immigrated to Anatolia from
19256-410: The hammam experience such as jewel boxes, gilded soap boxes, mirrors, metal henna bowls, perfume bottles and nalın (wooden or mother-of-pearl clogs that prevented slipping on the wet floor) can now only be seen in museums. Traditionally, the bathhouse masseurs ( Turkish : tellak ) were young men who soaped and scrubbed their clients. However, the tellaks were replaced by adult attendants during
19422-528: The historic city of Isfahan in particular containing many examples. The spread of Muslim rule in the Indian subcontinent also introduced hammams to this region, with many examples surviving in Mughal architecture (16th–19th centuries). Hammams continued to be a vital part of urban life in the Muslim world until the early 20th century when the spread of indoor plumbing in private homes rendered public baths unnecessary for personal hygiene. This has resulted in
19588-576: The inaccurate term "Turkish bath" is also used to refer to hammams. This stems from the tendency of historical Western writers to conflate ethnic and religious terms by referring to Muslims as "Turk" and because they presented hammams largely as an Ottoman cultural feature. The first recorded use of the term 'Turkish bath' in English was in 1644. Public bathhouses were a prominent civic and urban institution in Roman and Hellenistic culture and were found throughout
19754-622: The independence of the Middle East" in the 19th century "was not the armies of Europe but its banks". The Ottoman state, which had begun taking on debt with the Crimean War, was forced to declare bankruptcy in 1875. By 1881, the Ottoman Empire agreed to have its debt controlled by the Ottoman Public Debt Administration , a council of European men with presidency alternating between France and Britain. The body controlled swaths of
19920-507: The last Venetian stronghold in Cyprus, Famagusta. The Venetian defenders held out for 11 months against a force that at its peak numbered 200,000 men with 145 cannons; 163,000 cannonballs struck the walls of Famagusta before it fell to the Ottomans in August 1571. The Siege of Famagusta claimed 50,000 Ottoman casualties. Meanwhile, the Holy League consisting of mostly Spanish and Venetian fleets won
20086-491: The late 16th and early 17th centuries. With the Empire's population reaching 30 million people by 1600, the shortage of land placed further pressure on the government. In spite of these problems, the Ottoman state remained strong, and its army did not collapse or suffer crushing defeats. The only exceptions were campaigns against the Safavid dynasty of Persia, where many of the Ottoman eastern provinces were lost, some permanently. This 1603–1618 war eventually resulted in
20252-513: The local economy, Bursa's Jews were shop owners and involved in guilds. In the 16th and 17th centuries, they excelled in textile manufacturing, silk trade, goldsmithing , and finance. Despite economic struggles in the 18th and 19th centuries, a 1886 report highlighted poverty. Bursa faced blood libels in 1592 and 1865. Despite its size, the community produced renowned halakhic scholars across centuries. Modern schooling arrived in 1886 with Alliance Israélite Universelle , but it closed in 1923 during
20418-518: The loss of the Banat and the temporary loss of Belgrade (1717–1739), the Ottoman border on the Danube and Sava remained stable during the eighteenth century. Russian expansion , however, presented a large and growing threat. Accordingly, King Charles XII of Sweden was welcomed as an ally in the Ottoman Empire following his defeat by the Russians at the Battle of Poltava of 1709 in central Ukraine (part of
20584-424: The male hammam with their fathers. Women's hammams play a special role in society. Valerie Staats finds that the women's hammams of Morocco serve as a social space where traditional and modern women from urban and rural areas of the country come together, regardless of their religiosity, to bathe and socialise. The bathing regulations laid down by al-Ghazali and other Islamic intellectuals are not usually upheld in
20750-416: The mosque was designed and built by architect Ali Neccar in 1396–1400. It is a large and rectangular building, with a total of twenty domes that are arranged in four rows of five, and are supported by 12 columns. Supposedly the twenty domes were built instead of the twenty separate mosques which Sultan Bayezid I had promised for winning the Battle of Nicopolis in 1396. The mosque has two minarets . Inside
20916-427: The mosque, there are 192 monumental wall inscriptions written by the famous calligraphers of that period. There is also a fountain ( şadırvan ) where worshipers can perform ritual ablutions before prayer; the dome over the şadırvan is capped by a skylight which creates a soft, serene light below; thus playing an important role in the illumination of the large building. The horizontally spacious and dimly lit interior
21082-537: The need for greater numbers of Ottoman infantry equipped with firearms, resulting in a relaxation of recruitment policy. This contributed to problems of indiscipline and outright rebelliousness within the corps, which were never fully solved. Irregular sharpshooters ( Sekban ) were also recruited, and on demobilisation turned to brigandage in the Celali rebellions (1590–1610), which engendered widespread anarchy in Anatolia in
21248-417: The need to avoid touching the penis during bathing and after urination, and wrote that nakedness was decent only when the area between a man's knees and lower stomach was hidden. For women he suggested that only exposure of the face and palms was appropriate. According to al-Ghazali, nakedness in the hammam could incite indecent thoughts and behaviours, hence its controversial nature. In Islam ritual ablution
21414-490: The needs of ritual purification according to Islam. For example, in most Roman-style hammams, there was a cold pool for submersion of the body, a style of bathing that finds less favour with Islam which regards bathing under running water without being fully submerged more appropriate. Al-Ghazali , a prominent Muslim theologian of the 11th century, wrote Revival of the Religious Sciences , a multi-volume work discussing
21580-421: The new conditions of the seventeenth century and remain powerful, both militarily and economically. Historians of the mid-twentieth century once characterised this period as one of stagnation and decline, but this view is now rejected by the majority of academics. The discovery of new maritime trade routes by Western European states allowed them to avoid the Ottoman trade monopoly. The Portuguese discovery of
21746-459: The newly established Ankara -based Turkish government chose Turkey as the sole official name. At present, most scholarly historians avoid the terms "Turkey", "Turks", and "Turkish" when referring to the Ottomans, due to the empire's multinational character. As the Rum Sultanate declined in the 13th century, Anatolia was divided into a patchwork of independent Turkish principalities known as
21912-591: The old city; many others had been either demolished or repurposed. Cairo in Egypt contained an estimated 77 operational hammams at the beginning of the 19th century but only eight were still in business by the start of the 21st century, with many others abandoned or neglected. In the former European territories of the Ottoman Empire such as Greece and the Balkans , many hammams became defunct or were neglected in modern times, although some have now been restored and turned into historic monuments or cultural centres. Prayer
22078-406: The plague, which facilitated Ottoman expansion. In addition, slave hunting was the main economic driving force behind Ottoman conquest. Some 21st-century authors re-periodize conquest of the Balkans into the akıncı phase , which spanned 8 to 13 decades, characterized by continuous slave hunting and destruction, followed by administrative integration into the Empire. The son of Murad II, Mehmed
22244-418: The preserve mainly of tourists there is more likelihood that women will bathe naked. Some hammam complexes contain separate sections for men and women; elsewhere men and women are admitted at different times in which case the hours for women are usually far more limited than those for men. Traditionally hammams, especially those for women, doubled as places of entertainment with dancing and food being shared. It
22410-455: The progression from cold room to hot room was maintained, but it was no longer common practice to take a plunge in cold water after leaving the hot room, nor was exercise incorporated into bathing culture as it was in classical gymnasiums . Likewise, Muslim bathers usually washed themselves in running water rather than immersing themselves in standing water. Although in early Islamic history women did not normally patronise hammams, by around
22576-454: The recent decades due to the heavy industrialization of the city. Bursa is a major centre for tourism. One of the most popular skiing resorts in Turkey is located on Mount Uludağ , just next to the city proper. Bursa's thermal baths have been used for therapeutical purposes since Roman times. Apart from the baths that are operated by hotels, Uludağ University has a physical therapy centre which also makes use of thermal water. Bursa has
22742-563: The restoration of Ottoman suzerainty over Egypt Eyalet and the Levant . By the mid-19th century, the Ottoman Empire was called the " sick man of Europe ". Three suzerain states – the Principality of Serbia , Wallachia and Moldavia – moved towards de jure independence during the 1860s and 1870s. During the Tanzimat period (1839–1876), the government's series of constitutional reforms led to
22908-508: The secularization program. Jewish children then attended Turkish schools for a modern education. Bursa is twinned with: Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire ( / ˈ ɒ t ə m ə n / ), also called the Turkish Empire , was an imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe , West Asia , and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Central Europe , between
23074-467: The sixteenth century, the Ottoman Empire came under increasing strain from inflation and the rapidly rising costs of warfare that were impacting both Europe and the Middle East. These pressures led to a series of crises around the year 1600, placing great strain upon the Ottoman system of government. The empire underwent a series of transformations of its political and military institutions in response to these challenges, enabling it to successfully adapt to
23240-427: The soldiers), and 400,000 non-Muslims fled territory still under Ottoman rule. Justin McCarthy estimates that from 1821 to 1922, 5.5 million Muslims died in southeastern Europe, with the expulsion of 5 million. The defeat and dissolution of the Ottoman Empire (1908—1922) began with the Second Constitutional Era , a moment of hope and promise established with the Young Turk Revolution . It restored
23406-562: The sultan and restored Ottoman power. The Balkan territories lost by the Ottomans after 1402, including Thessaloniki, Macedonia, and Kosovo, were later recovered by Murad II between the 1430s and 1450s. On 10 November 1444, Murad repelled the Crusade of Varna by defeating the Hungarian, Polish, and Wallachian armies under Władysław III of Poland and John Hunyadi at the Battle of Varna , although Albanians under Skanderbeg continued to resist. Four years later, John Hunyadi prepared another army of Hungarian and Wallachian forces to attack
23572-403: The terms of the Convention of Kütahya , signed on 5 May 1833, Muhammad Ali agreed to abandon his campaign against the Sultan, in exchange for which he was made the vali (governor) of the vilayets (provinces) of Crete , Aleppo , Tripoli , Damascus and Sidon (the latter four comprising modern Syria and Lebanon ), and given the right to collect taxes in Adana . Had it not been for
23738-402: The town became a garrison city in 562, where imperial guards were stationed. Already by the mid-6th century, Bursa was known as a famous silk textile manufacturing centre. Bursa (from the Greek "Prusa") became the first major capital city of the early Ottoman Empire following its capture from the Byzantines in 1326. As a result, the city witnessed a considerable amount of urban growth such as
23904-417: The tribal followers of Osman in the fourteenth century. The word subsequently came to be used to refer to the empire's military-administrative elite. In contrast, the term "Turk" ( Türk ) was used to refer to the Anatolian peasant and tribal population and was seen as a disparaging term when applied to urban, educated individuals. In the early modern period , an educated, urban-dwelling Turkish speaker who
24070-445: The two cities. The 8.8 km (5.5 mi) long Bursa Uludağ Gondola ( Turkish : Teleferik ) connects Bursa with the ski resort areas 1,870 m (6,140 ft) high on the mountain Uludağ . The only railway station in Bursa is the Harmancık station on the Balıkesir - Kütahya railway, which was opened in 1930. The average amount of time people spend commuting with public transit in Bursa, for example to and from work, on
24236-567: The urban poor residing in the old cities ( medina s). In many other regions, however, hammams have become obsolete and have either been abandoned or converted to other uses. In Iran, some baths continue to operate in the historic districts of cities like Isfahan where they continue to serve religious functions, but there is an overall decline in their numbers. Many surviving Iranian examples have been converted to other uses, most notably as restaurants and teahouses . In Damascus , Syria , only thirteen hammams were still operating in 2004, mostly in
24402-434: The use of hammams. These scholars viewed hammams as unnecessary for full-body ablutions ( ghusl ) and questioned whether public bathing spaces could be sufficiently clean to achieve proper purification . They also worried that spaces for collective bathing could become spaces for illicit sexual activity. Nevertheless, this opposition progressively faded and by the 9th century most scholars were no longer interested in debating
24568-446: The validity of hammams, although it continued to be seen with suspicion in some conservative circles. The earliest known Islamic hammams were built in Syria and Jordan during the Umayyad Caliphate (661–750) as part of palaces and desert castles at Qusayr 'Amra , Hammam al-Sarah , Qasr al-Hayr al-Sharqi , and Khirbat al-Majfar . Shortly after this period, archaeology reveals the existence of Islamic bathhouses across much of
24734-466: The wars with Russia, some people in the Ottoman Empire began to conclude that the reforms of Peter the Great had given the Russians an edge, and the Ottomans would have to keep up with Western technology in order to avoid further defeats. Selim III (1789–1807) made the first major attempts to modernise the army , but his reforms were hampered by the religious leadership and the Janissary corps. Jealous of their privileges and firmly opposed to change,
24900-410: The years leading up to World War I , including the 31 March Incident and two further coups in 1912 and 1913 . The Ottoman Empire entered World War I on the side of the Central Powers and was ultimately defeated. The Ottoman participation in the war began with the combined German-Ottoman surprise attack on the Black Sea coast of the Russian Empire on 29 October 1914. Following the attack,
25066-449: Was 45,000 in 1487. During the Ottoman period, Bursa continued to be the source of most royal silk products. Aside from the local silk production, the city imported raw silk from Iran , and occasionally from China , and was the main production centre for the kaftans , pillows, embroidery and other silk products for the Ottoman palaces until the 17th century. Devshirme system was also implemented in Bursa and its surroundings where it
25232-400: Was a major obstacle to Ottoman expansion on the Italian peninsula. In the 15th and 16th centuries, the Ottoman Empire entered a period of expansion . The Empire prospered under the rule of a line of committed and effective Sultans . It flourished economically due to its control of the major overland trade routes between Europe and Asia. Sultan Selim I (1512–1520) dramatically expanded
25398-505: Was a result of the universality of nudity in these spaces. Hammams have also been associated with male homosexuality over the centuries and up to the present day. Features Types Types Features Clothing Genres Art music Folk Prose Islamic Poetry Genres Forms Arabic prosody National literatures of Arab States Concepts Texts Fictional Arab people South Arabian deities The hammam combines
25564-564: Was channeled through conduits under the floor . In a modern hammam visitors undress themselves, while retaining some sort of modesty garment or loincloth , and proceed into progressively hotter rooms, inducing perspiration . They are then usually washed by male or female staff (matching the gender of the visitor) with the use of soap and vigorous rubbing, before ending by washing themselves in warm water. Unlike in Roman or Greek baths, bathers usually wash themselves with running water instead of immersing themselves in standing water since this
25730-440: Was common to visit hammams before weddings or religious holidays, to celebrate births, to swap beauty tips, etc. Women also used visits to the hammam to size up potential wives for their sons. Some accessories from Roman times survive in modern hammams, such as the peştemal (a special cloth of silk and/or cotton to cover the body, like a pareo ) and the kese (a rough mitten used for scrubbing). However, other accoutrements of
25896-414: Was established as an independent principality inside the Ottoman Empire; Romania achieved full independence; and Serbia and Montenegro finally gained complete independence, but with smaller territories. In 1878, Austria-Hungary unilaterally occupied the Ottoman provinces of Bosnia-Herzegovina and Novi Pazar . British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli advocated restoring the Ottoman territories on
26062-635: Was established in 2010, beginning education in the 2011–2012 academic year. The first private university in Bursa was the Bursa Orhangazi University , which started education in the 2012–2013 academic year. However, Orhangazi University was shut down by the Turkish government after the failed coup attempt of July 2016. Istanbul Commerce University has opened graduate programs in Bursa in 2013. The vocational high schools, Bursa Sports High School , and Bursa Agriculture Vocational High School , are located in Osmangazi district. The city has one professional football club, Bursaspor , which formerly competed in
26228-441: Was famous for being the largest centre of silk trade in the Byzantine and later the Ottoman empires, during the period of the lucrative Silk Road . The city is still a major centre for textiles in Turkey and is home to the Bursa International Textiles and Trade Centre ( Bursa Uluslararası Tekstil ve Ticaret Merkezi , or BUTTIM ). Bursa was also known for its fertile soil and agricultural activities, which have decreased in
26394-484: Was far more damaging to the Ottoman navy in sapping experienced manpower than the loss of ships, which were rapidly replaced. The Ottoman navy recovered quickly, persuading Venice to sign a peace treaty in 1573, allowing the Ottomans to expand and consolidate their position in North Africa. By contrast, the Habsburg frontier had settled somewhat, a stalemate caused by a stiffening of the Habsburg defenses. The Long Turkish War against Habsburg Austria (1593–1606) created
26560-497: Was in tremendous need of future shepherds was taken seriously by the state, and a decree commanded the return of the children. Bursa was also notable for its numerous hammams (bath) built during the reign of Suleiman such as the Yeni Kaplıca. From 1867 until 1922, Bursa was the capital of Hüdavendigâr vilayet . As it was a significant cultural and trade hub, traders, most of whom were Armenians, became very wealthy. The most influential study of Bursa's silk trade and economic history
26726-475: Was negotiated between the authorities and locals. For example, during the 1603-4 levy, the villagers of a Christian village called Eğerciler , in Bursa, declared that they were responsible for providing sheep to the capital, and the children of the village were very much needed as shepherds. They asserted that even though they were not obliged to give any children to the army, the officers took some anyway, and that they should be returned. The villagers’ claim that it
26892-479: Was not a member of the military-administrative class typically referred to themselves neither as an Osmanlı nor as a Türk , but rather as a Rūmī ( رومى ), or "Roman", meaning an inhabitant of the territory of the former Byzantine Empire in the Balkans and Anatolia. The term Rūmī was also used to refer to Turkish speakers by the other Muslim peoples of the empire and beyond. As applied to Ottoman Turkish speakers, this term began to fall out of use at
27058-421: Was often considered to be one of the five biggest football clubs in Turkey, along with Galatasaray , Fenerbahçe, Beşiktaş and Trabzonspor. The club's relegation to the TFF First League at the end of the 2018–19 season was a major shock for its fans and became a first in the history of Turkish football. Never had a club which had won the Süper Lig championship title been relegated. Bursaspor plays its home games at
27224-409: Was on the defensive and unlikely to present any further aggression in Europe. The Austro-Russian–Turkish War (1735–1739), which was ended by the Treaty of Belgrade in 1739, resulted in the Ottoman recovery of northern Bosnia , Habsburg Serbia (including Belgrade), Oltenia and the southern parts of the Banat of Temeswar ; but the Empire lost the port of Azov , north of the Crimean Peninsula, to
27390-423: Was part of a long-running contest between the major European powers for influence over territories of the declining Ottoman Empire. The financial burden of the war led the Ottoman state to issue foreign loans amounting to 5 million pounds sterling on 4 August 1854. The war caused an exodus of the Crimean Tatars , about 200,000 of whom moved to the Ottoman Empire in continuing waves of emigration. Toward
27556-489: Was partly assumed by later historians. He suggests that the hammam's initial appeal derived at least in part from its convenience for other services (such as shaving ), from its endorsement by some Muslim doctors as a form of therapy, and from the continued popular appreciation of its pleasures in a region where they had already existed for centuries. He also notes that there was initially strong opposition from many Islamic scholars ( ulama ) , especially Maliki scholars, to
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